All The Words

We’re about to leave for St. Croix and I’ll be out of cellular range and I’m going to try and hammer out a post as fast as I can—so prepare for typos.  There are a lot of little things I took note of to write about as the day went along yesterday.   It was an action packed fun day of sailing.

The title of this post is about my daughter.   There are phrases we say on the sailboat that indicate we’re all aware what’s going on when the captain communicates to us.   For instance, Richard will say, “prepare to tack” shortly followed by, “tacking” to which we all respond, “tacking, aye”.   We need to know because either we have a job to preform when he says, “prepare to tack” or we need to be safely out of the way when the tacking happens, which is why we all respond with, “tacking, aye”.

My daughter loves these phrases.   She knows where to be and what to respond and her responses are always the loudest and most enthusiastic.   As we prepared to “come about” or turn two days ago I was with my daughter.   We were heading up to the front of the boat to the trampoline (a mesh covering between the two halves of the boat that is fun to lie or sit on because the water is directly underneath you.).  As my daughter and I moved carefully forward she reached up and felt something. “what is that, mom?”

What was it?  It was one of the sails.   She knew all the words to say, knew what to do and where to be, but we had completely neglected to show her what a sail looked like (or in her case, felt like).  It’s these kind of things that kill me.   We’d shown her all around the boat, let her feel so many things, but the sail part of the “sailboat” we were on we missed entirely.   Sometimes we don’t even realize what it is that we’re missing when it comes to helping her understand the world around her.  We’re blind to her blindness in a way.  We’re learning more and more as time goes on though, becoming more aware of how she sees (or doesn’t see) the world.

I went back to the cabin and got her Draftsman out.   Using the special paper and mat, you can draw raised pictures easily.   I drew a top-down view of the boat and a side view drawing, both simplistic, but enough to give her a better idea of where the sails were and how very large and tall they were as she was only able to touch the bottom foot of the sail when we encountered it on our way to the trampoline.

We wanted to go to a restaurant for late lunch/early dinner yesterday.   Our neighbors had coincidentally been in St. John the week before and told us about Lime Out, a floating taco and craft beverage restaurant.   As we headed into the cove where Lime Out was, Richard saw a small rainstorm we could sail through.   It would be fun and cooling but more importantly, it would wash the boat.    It was fun and it did cool the boat.   It cooled us down pretty quickly too, my daughter being the first one to head inside.   She doesn’t hold back when she has feelings about something; as she was heading inside she said, “Richard, you ruined my whole day!”

We made it to where Lime Out was floating, moored up on a mooring ball and headed over, some swimming, some in the dinghy.   Here’s my daughter as we’re coming in, with the back side of the green taco bar visible in the bay.

My daughter does what she always does: made fast friends with the people beside us.   This time it was two girls just out of college named Kendall and Emily.   I told them to send her back any time they needed a break, but no, they wanted to hand out with my daughter the entire time.   One of the two came over to me and told me one of her closest friends growing up had been blind.   She also had gotten a degree in special needs education in college.  I never said my daughter was blind, they figured it out and treated her like she was just another normal child.

As we left, my daughter wanted me to get their phone number so we could keep in touch.   We had nothing to write on and our phones were back on the boat, which was sad to my daughter so we waved as we went our separate ways and said we’d look our for their boat in case we ran into each other again.

You know that saying, “you can’t get there from here”?   In a sailboat that phrase is actually true, or as Richard says, “you can’t get there from here, but you can get there from there, and we’re heading there now.”   In a sailboat you have to use the wind and that means taking a zig zag path into a location sometimes instead of going straight in like you would if you were driving with the engine and props.   We’re not in a hurry though, and the tacking and coming about parts of sailing are where the action is for my children.

When we’re underway one of the favorite locations for the children—all four—are these little seats at the very front of the boat.   They bob up and down more than any location on the boat.   My children have started arguing over who gets to have the seats.   Yesterday I told them, “we have six days left and two seats.  That’s twelve sailing days total seat time.  you will have plenty of time to sit there.”

Here’s my son on one of the seats.   No panicking when you look at it.   They hold on and we don’t let them go up there if it’s too choppy.   They always have their life vests on and know what to do in the case of a man overboard.   I’m going to write about man overboard procedure when I get a chance.

This boat is densely packed.  All boats are.   Every bit of useable space is taken up with something or has storage built in it or underneath it.   Boats are a marvel of organization.   Which is why I was equally amazed when I went underneath the boat yesterday while out swimming.   The bottom of a boat is smoothly simple.   It has to be because to glide through the water, you want only the most streamlined, literally, design.  

Clothespins.   All of my life I’ve known what they are but have never had a use for them save for some holiday craft in which you use them to make a nutcracker ornament type of thing.  We use them all the time on the boat though.   There is a wire hand railing up and down the port and starboard sides of the boat.   In addition to being helpful steading devices for walking around a sailboat underway, they are perfect for hanging and drying clothes and towels, affixed with clothespins.

The Big Boy Update: My son loves to be up on the bow when the boat is underway.   When the waves are particularly high, he and Andrew like to stand with their knees partially bent.   When the boat goes up on a high wave they jump up just as the boat drops down.   They’re getting some good air time with the waves we’ve had so far.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter loves the clothespins.   She’s been making figured out various ways to hook them together.   She wanted to know if we could get some when we got home.   I told her we already had some and they were all hers when we got back.  

The Best Breakfast Vegetables

We’re mostly eating on the boat on our sailing trip as opposed to going on island to go to restaurants. This was by suggestion from the family we’re sailing with.   They’ve done this before and it’s just easier.   People can snack or eat when they want, we’re not waiting around for everyone to get dressed in clothes instead of bathing suits so we can pile into the dinghy to get to shore, to walk somewhere, to wait at a table to order and eventually get food.   This is just easier.

My husband and Alice have mostly done the cooking.   Richard is the captain which involves countless decisions every day to make sure we’re all safe and our journey is moving forward (even in the absence of the left, rear prop.). My jobs?  I’m still finding them.  It turns out I’m good at cutting up a watermelon during high chop while the boat is underway.   I’m also good at doing the dishes.   And tidying up.   Always tidying up.

For food, we’re not eating anything special, mostly comfort foods like hotdogs with baked beans, sandwiches or pasta.   Each morning Alice gets in the kitchen and makes all sorts of things.  Lots of toast comes out on plates as well as something called, “breakfast vegetables”.

My son is fairly adventurous with food and was willing to try the sautéed cabbage, onions and peppers and after two bites asked if he could have more.   My daughter said things like, ‘yukky’, ‘it smells bad’, and ‘I don’t want it!”

We had a discussion with the children before we left, explaining that the food on the boat was what would be served and that we expected them to eat it and not complain.   I upped the, “no thank you bite” requirement to two bites (not nibbles).   My daughter was unhappy about this.

So when I put the breakfast vegetables on her plate (two small bites worth) she was adamant she didn’t like them.   Until she tried them, and then she wanted more too.

During lunch yesterday my son said, “Alice, you make the best vegetables.”  We all like them so much my husband is going to get her recipe so he can make them when we get home.

As I just writing this, a large sea turtle just swam right up to the boat.   I missed getting a picture.   I bet there’ll be more.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been into riddles lately.   Andrew and Julia asked him to tell me his favorite riddle and then followed up with, “we’re going to tell you the answer, because you’d never figure it out.”   Note that my son did not make this up, he read it somewhere and it kicked off his riddle mania.  The Riddle:  You’re in a room with no doors or other ways out.   There is a mirror and a table.   How do you get out?”  The answer:  you look in the mirror and you see what you saw.   You take the saw and cut the table in half.   Two halves make a whole.   You go put the hole (whole)  on the wall and walk out of the room.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: As my daughter was changing clothes yesterday she told me this, "It's kind of nice when you go tot he bathroom in the ocean because it's kind of like, "hey dude, look at me, I'm going to the bathroom and I don't have to flush"

Sailboats Are Loud

We’ve been on the sailboat portion of our vacation for two nights now.   I’m learning things.   I haven’t the slightest clue how to do the things required to actually sail the sailboat, but I’ve made myself useful in several areas.

Yesterday after the marina staff came out to where we were anchored and replaced the missing prop by scuba diving under the boat—which is just all kinds of cool in my opinion.  We stuck around St. Thomas, sailing around a good portion of the island to prepare for two things today.  First we’ll be visiting Hans Lollik, the island we had a view of when we were here in last December.  And second we’re better positioned to head to St. John, where we’ll stock up on fresh water and maybe visit a beach.

We’ll probably get a chance to see what it’s like to get off a boat that’s been moving underneath us for two days, only to find our brains incorrectly tell us the solid ground is moving underneath us.   I lost my hat yesterday to wind but good news, we’re stopping in the exact port I purchased the hat from in December so I plan on buying another one.

Some additional things about being on a sailboat.   First and foremost‚ it’s loud.   It’s not unlike our electric car, which is super silent moving along under the electric motor.  It’s everything else that makes our Tesla cars less than silent.   The wind noise as you move through the air, on land for the car and at sea for the boat.   There are other noises too, like the air conditioners, which we turn on when we’re not sailing to cool down our cabins for sleep at night.  

It’s the generator and the air conditioners that make the boat louder than I’d anticipated while lying in our cabin at night.   It’s July in the Carribean and I’m thrilled to have the air conditioning.   If you’re a fan of ambient noise to sleep, you’d drop off to sleep in no time with the hum of the generator and the blowing of the fan underneath the foot of the bed, circulating the air through the  room.

Two of our boat members didn’t feel well yesterday: my husband and my son.   Neither got to the point where they vomited, but they didn’t feel well for several hours.   We gave them both a few of the motion sickness options that can be taken at the same time and my son was running around on the bow of the sailboat with Andrew later in the afternoon.

The Big Boy Update: My son came on deck this morning where I’m sitting here at the table writing this blog post with a plate in his hand.   “I’m having an 'Andrew Egg!’”  Andrew, prefers a fried egg on top of buttered toast.   My son idolizes Andrew.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter said out of the blue today, “Mom, if you had just one wish, I know what it would be.”   I was writing this blog post at the time so I answered sarcastically, putting my hand on her shoulder and said, “for you to not talk to me until I finish writing this?”   She said, “no, your wish would be to have no more pain.”    That almost brought tears to my eyes.   I told her I loved her and that was a very special thing to say.   I didn’t tell her I would wish for her eyesight instead of my pain though.   As obvious as that choice would be any of us as parents, I don’t think she would understand.

Where’d That Prop Go?

So we’re still here, looking at St. Thomas, which isn’t saying that much because we weren’t planning on going very far away the first day anyway.   It was mostly getting on the boat, getting everything stowed, unpacking and finding all the things we had been wondering where we’d packed them but couldn’t get to over the two days prior.  It was about getting to the point where we could all take a deep breath because there wasn’t anything that really had to be done, save feed ourselves and plan the next stop on our voyage.

Or at least that’s how I imagined it.   That’s a little simplified, but we do plan on having a less structured schedule with much less to do soon.   Yesterday there were some things at checkout that needed.   Let me talk about a few things about being on a boat that I find interesting.   Mind you, if you’ve spent time on a boat before you will probably find this information mundane and obvious.   I’m a neophyte when it comes to boats, so it’s all novel to me.

The toilets have an “in” and “out” buttons.   Some toilets have the little flush and big flush buttons, these are different.   The toilet has some water in it as a starting state.  You go.   You then hold the “out" or “flush" button to cause the water to go down the pipes to the collection tank.   Now you have an open path from the bottom of your toilet to where everything you put in the toilet is being held…which does not smell good.   We found this out when my child flushed, but did not refill.   So you refill immediately after flushing.   You repeat this cycle a second time and everything that’s in the tube from the toilet to the holding tank is not completely in the tank.   Once I explained it to the children they got it easily.

The next thing that I found interesting is the boat’s size.   It’s variable.   It seemed huge when I first stepped on it.   It seemed massive when Richard was pulling it away from the dock and into the channel.   When we got into open water and I was standing up top, the boat shrunk.   It was tiny with the water all around it.   Five minutes later we were in a tight channel and another boat was coming towards us.   Our boat swelled up to a size I hadn’t experienced before, until it was apparent the other boat would pass by us with a clear margin.   Those are the types of shenanigans my brain played with my on the size of the boat.   Surroundings make a huge difference in perception.

It was getting late so we went to a nice spot off shore at St. Thomas and dropped anchor.  Richard at this point said there was something wrong with the engine, which sounded alarming to me although Richard said, “it was something to work on” and wasn’t overly bothered.

He got into the water to investigate in the fading light of day and discovered one of the props had fallen off.   The told us this isn’t something we could have done or caused.  Richard also said the prop had been on until just recently as the boat was maneuvering fine up to that point.  They sent an email about it last night.

Interestingly enough, even though this sounds like a super important part of the boat to me, it actually isn’t crucial.   The boat can move on engine power just fine without the missing prop.   It won’t move as quickly and will be a bit less maneuverable, but since we’ll be sailing most of the time or in the dinghy, we’re fine if they can’t get it replaced.

This last one is a secret, so don’t tell my family members…no one is feeling sick yet.   We were on the ocean, swaying around gently all night and everyone followed the same routine as usual, including waking up this morning and being happy and hungry.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son is right at home on the sailboat.   He was all over the place yesterday, very happy to be on board.   He and his sister are required to wear their life vests at all times when they’re on deck.   He told his sister, “we haven’t had our ‘Man Overboard’ lesson yet” when she asked why we had to wear them.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   This isn’t something I’m happy to report.   My daughter’s bladder infection is back.  She agreed with me when she wet her pants in the middle of the night.   It has a certain smell which confirms without a doubt in my mind that her infection is back.   So we started her on the antibiotic in the middle of the night for the duration of the trip until we can get back to

Seven Ways

I’m at the dock now, waiting to get. checked into our boat.   I’m not sure what the process is, but it’s taking on our end multiple trips from the house to the dock to get everything and everyone conveyed here.   We will also have some process we need to go through to get cleared to sail the boat.   That part I have no part in.  I’m not the captain.   I hold no rank at all on the boat until perhaps later in the voyage when I become trained.

Are we prepared?   I hope we are.   In one area I would say we’re over prepared.   This is an area we will or will not need to any varying degree.  This area is seasickness.   We don’t know if any or all of us will have an issue with the rocking and swaying of the boat.   We’re prepared though.   We have no less than seven different ways to combat nausea and sea sickness.  

We don’t know if we’ll need any of the options, but various friends and family suggested each item was essential to have…so we have them all.

Day one of our sailing adventure is going more slowly than anticipated.   We need to depart shortly or they will keep us here for the night because it will take longer to get out of the harbor than we have time before the harbor closes.   Or something like that.   It’s close to four o’clock and while I’ve been on the boat since before eleven o’clock, we haven’t actually gone anywhere.   I’ve been busy though, unpacking and stowing things.  

Hopefully we’ll be underway shortly.   My husband and Alice are waiting for us to pick them up near the airport where they dropped the rental cars.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son was very, very happy to report this morning how he used no screen time and, <check my pants please> he had totally clean underwear.   He most definitely did not like losing screen time or the threat of letting his friends know about it (a leverage point threat, not something I would have actually done).   He hasn’t had much screen time today because we’ve been on the boat.   He hasn’t missed it, he’s been having fun.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was on the boat no less than five minutes before we turned away to the multitude of other things needed to get the boat ready for sailing, when my daughter cut her chin.   Fairly badly.   We tried to butterfly it so it would heal without a bad scar.   Not how we wanted to start a positive experience on the boat with her.

Plenty of Time

Let it be said that the title of this blog post is entirely sarcastic.   I didn’t have a chance to get to my emails before leaving.   I was out of contact in the air, or hopelessly engaged with luggage or a blind child or other travel-type tasks that don’t remotely lend themselves to reading emails, much less responding to them.

I fell asleep early last night and when I woke up in the middle of the night I couldn’t do much on account of the Wifi for the villa here not extending into the room we’re occupying.   This morning was up, children, breakfast out and then drive to downtown to have my hair and my daughter’s hair done in corn rows for the duration of the trip.   That took five-and-a-half hours due to several complicating factors.  

Here’s the thing: before children I can see me getting lots of things done on vacation that I couldn’t accomplish at home.   Children are wonderfully fun and expand your lives in directions you’d never expect, but they’re also massive time sucks.   My daughter, for five-and-a-half hours today, needed verbal stimulation.   We played games, we talked to Anna, who was doing our hair.   We talked to other people, but mostly she talked with me.   Asking me endless questions.

I did the best I could, which was a pretty good job I think, but after not having any lunch and it was 4:45PM and my daughter needed us to stop a send time, hair all askew, to go to the bathroom at a restaurant I had to ask if we could please use because the location with the public restrooms had burned down apparently and were closed.  

About that point, I couldn’t take it any more.   I told my daughter I needed time to think, to not talk to her, that my brain needed a break from questions every seven seconds from her.   She wasn’t upset about it, she tried and I think made it fifteen seconds a time or two between telling me something, asking me something or saying, “mama…mama…mama?”

I missed all the grocery shopping and stocking up everyone else did today.   Thanks to them for everything they did while we did nothing aside from have our hair braided.   We’re headed to dinner and then showers and then sleep and then tomorrow we get up, transfer everything to the boat, return cars and then head out…and I will have gotten zero emails read or responded to and I’ll be out of communication for the next while.

There’s just not as much time as there used to be.   I hope like hell there isn’t major important things that need to be done in my inbox.   I’m going to do a run-through quickly tonight if I can get the time.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son does not want you to know this.   But I’m going to tell you.   For some unknown reason, on this trip where we have no ability to wash laundry once we get on the boat so we’ve packed enough clothes, hoping to rewear things other than underwear.   On this trip, my son has decided to poop in his pants (well, badly streak them) three, yes THREE, times in the first twenty-four hours since we left.   Two of those times are in the new pajamas I just got—pajamas which we don’t have replacements for.   He has lost screen time entirely at his choosing.   I strategically told him he could lose screen time for the rest of the day of I would explain to Andrew and Julia why he was having troubles and we hoped they would understand and help him out.   I would not have done the latter, but I wanted to scare him enough that he’d take seriously going to the bathroom.    Today he was very bored he said, but he hasn’t gone in his pants.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and son were talking this morning and I think I said ‘hell’.   My daughter said she knew a bad word—the one that starts with ’S’.   My son said he knew the one that started with ‘F’.   My daughter asked me if I knew the ’S’ word and I said, “do you mean the word that’s like ‘shoot’ but stronger?”   She said, “no, I mean the word, ‘sexy’.   I don’t know what it means, but it’s bad.   It has something to do with marriage."

Offline Blogging

I’m in a position I’ve never encountered in all the years I’ve been doing this blog. I will be out of touch electronically, off the grid as the saying goes. Hold on, what does that saying mean actually? Does it mean off the power grid, taking no energy from sources outside of those you generate personally? Does it include electronic networks as well as electric ones? I’m going to have to look that up when I get back in contact with the rest of the networked world.

Which brings me back to my first point—I’m writing this post in a text editor on my laptop for later uploading and publishing when I get reconnected. Right now I’m on a plane. There is wifi for a fee but I don’t really need anything online I can’t wait a few hours for so I’m staying offline for the time being.

We got off this morning with a minimum of fuss. There was fuss, to be sure. I “out fussed” the children by what I will admit was bad mood plus lack of temper control. I’d had it mentally over the past several days. I can’t explain why, It’s not like any one of the things I had to do was complicated or hard. Everything was doable. The job had unknown bounds on it. It was unknowingly large in time commitment. It was a never ending job.

Now that all the bags had been packed and it was time to actually go on the trip, something must have snapped in me because instead of being happy we were finally leaving, I was still focused on all the things I didn’t get done that I now have to do once we get on vacation. So I was cranky. I’m trying to get into vacation mode, but I’m not there yet.  Hopefully soon.

The Big Boy Update: My son has been given some criteria around his screen time while we’re traveling. He can do things on his iPad or switch, but there will be a portion of time he must be reading or doing writing assignments I brought with me from his summer work packet.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Now don’t get excited when I tell you this, because it may not have real significance but my daughter has seen some things lately. As in she wasn’t afraid to go to the neighbor’s houses because she can find her way more confidently there. As in she seems to see things on her iPad—which she hasn’t done for a long time. She used to be able to do a very few things on the iPad but she’s given up anything other than listening on her iPad for a good long while now. Today on the plane she was playing Toca Boo, a game has a black background with a white ghost. She was seeing something and following things on the screen. That’s a change for the positive we think.